The Blood is Rare and Sweet as Cherry Wine
by Cinthrie3
Summary: Short Sansa x Tyrion fic where bran allows Tyrion to leave with Sansa to become her hand/King.


He'd been told his departed wife had been subject to horrors since they'd gone their separate ways. Yet, seeing the way she had carried herself through the long night was a reminder that the child named Sansa he'd known all those years ago was one to survive them all. And he had never for a moment doubted her - not even when his thoughts would wander to her as hand of Daenarys Targaryen - not even when he'd been told of her marriage to Roose Bolton's son - not even when he'd gazed backward in time through her eyes in the crypts, with a deep and childlike fear inside them that he'd seen too many times before.

They stood in the empty council room together now. He was fumbling with each of the chairs, moving them back and forth until they were exactly to his liking and prepared for tomorrows first meeting. Even with the weight of the empty air between them and their lack of discussion over their long journeys apart, the silence instead seemed fitting.

_You were the best of them, _she'd said. That was, truly, a horrifying thought. But he hadn't urged her to explain. She was a child when he had wed her. And sweet as a cherry wine, she had never once asked him about his own misdeeds when it came to real matters of man and wife - so pure, so innocent. By the time he boarded the ship to Pentos, he didn't care much whether he lived or died. Yet, if anything kept him hopeful and breathing, he'd be lying if he said it wasn't to catch a glimpse of her face one last time, alive and well - smiling even, in his wildest dreams.

And here she was.

There was something tragic about her, oh yes - and he wondered what it may have looked like when the youth she'd lived in Winterfell before her world fell apart shone in her eyes. He was sure it was something beautiful and sinfully precious. But even now, just like her mother, she was strong.

"Does it feel the same to you, my lord?"

"Not as familiar as it should, I think." He pressed his lips together, knocking the final chair into place. "We've all lost this war somehow - maybe not _all_, though. Queen of Winterfell," he chuckled, "Has a nice ring to it."

"So does hand of the king." She remarked. "You don't seem pleased." Tyrion shook his head.

"I believe I've had my fill of being hand for a lifetime."

"Even hand to the queen of Winterfell?" She arched a brow at him. This time, he was nearly sentenced to silence.

"Now what on earth would make you say something like that?"

"No? Forgive me, then. King of Winterfell," she corrected, her eyes shining at him as the steel armor of her character began to melt away piece by piece. The longer he refused to speak, the more her eyes began to gloss over. He was beginning to wonder if he was missing something, but even then it did not seem to shake him so impossible that she'd ask this of him. Furthermore, he was sure this was the same parts of her never before shared with him - her vulnerabilities, her insecurities, her _heart_.

"Oh dear, Sansa." He murmured, marching around the council table to take her hands in his at once. "Dear, sweet, Sansa." Her mouth twitched up to try and hold her smile, the tears threatening to make way down her cheeks. "You never cease to amaze me."

"Are you rejecting my proposal, my lord?" The phrasing was polite, but her voice was cracking. Her kind eyes toward him did not falter, and she searched his eyes uneasily. His heart was full, but the horrible, terrible parts of him needed to keep her waiting - needed to keep her just a little more unsure. He slid his hands from hers slowly and gently until she no longer could hold her smile. As her hand came up to her face, she buried one of her eyes, clumsily laughing at herself but not a laugh of joy.

"I'm sorry, my lord - it's just - I - you know, I did not truly deserve you as my husband. You were the kindest man I've ever known." He watched as her figure became level with his, allowing her knees to rest on the floor in front of him to explain herself, though she still did not meet his eyes. He concentrated on her, analyzing everything about her before the moment closed to an end. And she continued.

"It was no wonder to me, after experiencing all I'd had in the Vale and being remarried to - ah, well… It was no surprise to me that when you had returned, I'd found myself having fallen in love with you." As if she'd shot an arrow through his chest with only that, he willed himself with every fiber of his being to remain still and unmoved by her, brows still knit together in concentration. "When you were beside me in the crypts, I'd known it then - truly. When I looked into your eyes, I knew I had not fallen in love with you at that moment, but had been falling in love with you every day you were not there and every night that I had dreamed of you." Suddenly, she uncovered the half of her face where the tears spilled heavily and freely down her cheeks, the sad smile returning. She laughed bitterly at herself before finally meeting his gaze pleadingly. "How ironic now. I deserve this. I should have loved you the moment I met y-"

Before she could finish, Tyrion buried his mouth over hers with a need so deep he thought he'd die without it - his hands gripped the sides of her face, pulling her into him until she was all he could feel. She was beautiful - sweet as he had known her to be. The ice queen with a warmth he was not so sure anybody in the world could understand the way he could.

"There has not been a day gone by I have not loved you. My dear, Sansa." He kissed her again, and again. "Dear, sweet Sansa." He felt a sense of torture at the way her face twisted in a mixture of new emotions for her. He understood she, of any people he had ever known, did not understand how the love between a man and woman would work. She, battered and abused since she was only ten and two by the men around her - and yet she who was asking him for love. And oh, how deserving of love she, of all people he could think of were. And he too, needed to love her more than anything he'd ever felt before.

"I will be beside you and I will not leave until you ask me to."

"And what if I never ask you to?" She whispered breathlessly, eyes flitting from each of his mismatched eyes.

"Then forever. I will be by your side forever."

Sansa left a few weeks before Tyrion did, allowing him to clear up the last loose ends he had in kings landing. The king was understanding of his request and even seemed expectant of it, wishing them eternal happiness. And when he had finally arrived in Winterfell, Sansa was waiting in the hall for him. He arrived late in the night, her showing him to their shared chambers.

"If you'd prefer a room of your own, I would not protest you," she said. Tyrion raised an eyebrow at her.

"Is that so?" As she nodded at him, he nodded back with her absentmindedly, taking in his surroundings. He paced the chambers, allowing his hands to find a marked book on her nightstand. "The Knight of the Second Moon," he murmured, a smile twitching warmly at the corners of his mouth. "You'd told me once you no longer read of knights and love." When he found no response, he decided to flip to her marker, picking a random line near his thumb. _'… Jenny swirled in the arms of moonlight and Ser Mordel watched as her silhouette painted shadows on the gray, stone wall behind her. He could not bring himself to offer her a hand or a dance, for when she waltzed by the song of the moon when she thought no one watched, she shone like the moon itself.' _He paused, "I read this as a boy."

"I like Jenny," Sansa muttered quietly.

"Oh, yes. I do, too. And yet, I think Ser Mordel a simple fool." Tyrion set the book delicately back in its place, turning to look at her. She waited for him to explain, her cool and steely air of her not daring fidget now - he could tell she had prepared herself in the coming weeks for him, though not as he would have liked. "He spent so much time watching her and moonlight dance, but he loved her like all of the nature around her combined. Jenny is such a complex character, so especially good at having learned to be alone because she thought the knight she'd adored all those years did not love her in return… Ser Mordel should have known it himself that he was the moonlight she danced with all night."

"But she was happy, wasn't she?"

"Perhaps she was. I, for one, would not be so easily contented with loving the ghost of a person I knew was alive only a stones throw away." Suddenly, the distance between them seemed to stretch a thousand years wide and it was evident. Sansa, once again, was captivated by him. He smiled a small smile at her, "That's only me though." Narrowing her eyes a bit to find a kind of understanding, she bit her lip.

"How do you do that?"

"Do what?" He glanced away, somewhat caught off-guard.

"Know everything?" He laughed then.

"It's what I do, my dear! I drink and I know things. Maybe I don't drink so much these days though. Maybe I don't know as much as I used to." And she allowed herself to laugh with him, covering her mouth shyly with her fist. "On any note, I do quite like this room." It was colored in grays and blues, bringing out the fire in her hair while the candlelight danced along her strands in the dark. He nodded in the direction of the sofa. "And yours seems by _far_ more comfortable than mine back in Kings Landing."

She followed his gaze to the sofa, brows furrowing as she glanced back and forth between them in a tension. He chuckled, driving her to look at him and then allowing the confusion coloring her expression to melt into warmth. "I don't take up much space. I promise," he summarized, trying to comfort some of her anxieties over their first night together in five years.

He had been prepared for the distance to dwell between them since her confession. He had expected distance no matter what, ever since the moment he pulled his lips from hers and gazed into her lost and confused eyes. Yes, love would be difficult, even if she had already declared hers for him. Tyrion knew women, for the most part. He had seen the effects that abuse had done to them - even in the brothels, it was something that could not be so easily undone. From a strike to the cheek to a caress was not such a simple transition. It was slow. And he would not allow a moment of her time with him to go unloved.

When she had gone behind her divider to change into her bedclothes, he slipped off his boots, tugging the tunic up and over himself and draping it over the sofa so that he was only in his nightclothes as well. Before she'd finished, he plopped himself onto the bed.

"Tyrion." His name rolled off of her tongue like silk.

"Yes?" She slipped into view, her feet carrying her slowly toward him. She was fidgeting with the straps at her shoulders idly, trying to analyze something in him. "Hey," he said, trying to mimic sunshine in his voice. "May I tell you something?" She nodded once, now only a step away from him. Allowing his hand to reach for hers, he brought it to his lips, rubbing at the back of it reassuringly with his other hand. "I remember very clearly the morning after the long night. You had told me something of a secret." Her cheeks began to redden, and for that, he felt a twinge of guilt at even bringing it up. "Or rather, maybe something personal about you. You suffered panic attacks at a very young age. When you'd have them you were afraid of your feet touching the floor as if it would swallow you up." She nodded at him. "I almost thought you were joking, but you were actually very serious with me. I am no Ser Mordel, and I may never be able to sweep you off your feet. But perhaps slowly, as maybe you would dip your toes into the sands that seem to sink, I'd like to think we could walk into this slowly too."

"I'd like that very much." She said at once, the fragile, glassy look in her eyes beginning to turn like a wave of relief spreading over her.

"Slowly," he pulled her carefully into him until her hips brushed his knees by the bedside. "And your own pace. We have a lifetime to love one another, but I want you to know that you _are_ in charge. And you _do_ have power here, with me, just the same as you have power as the Queen of Winterfell."

He sat still as she brought her fingers to glide through the roughness of his beard, holding his face in her hands. Hesitantly, she pressed her lips against his. Her lips did not move, causing him to begin their dance with his own. "Tyrion," she mumbled against his lips, "I want to know what it feels like to be loved by you."

"I do -"

"I want to have every part of you." Now he pulled back, staring up at her.

"Every part?"

"Yes. Every part - as the moonlight kissed each possible curve of Jenny, I'd like to know how it feels when it's not supposed to burn." Underneath the breaking of his heart was an understanding. He parted from her, backing into the other side of the bed so that she may lay beside him. As he propped himself up on his elbow, he motioned for her to curl toward him and when he had her there, he allowed his hand to run comfortingly through her hair. Down her neck and her back causing her to shiver, but then back up to her shoulders. As he blew the candlelight out by his bedside, he began planting warm kisses all around her face and neck.

"Just like this," he said. And each time his hand ran along her thigh, she was sure it would pull her legs apart and pursue entry, but it did not. Instead, the feeling grew itself more natural, reminding her fondly of the times her mother would lay beside her and run her fingers through her hair and over her back to lull her to sleep. And as if she were already entering a dream, her eyes drifted shut to the sound of humming.

When she awoke, her lord husband had gone. Sitting up with a hiss, she glanced around the room. Surely he was not walking the halls of Winterfell alone or even down to the dining hall for breakfast without her? The Northerners were warned of his arrival and although many did not particularly care for the idea, they trusted their queen. For that, she was grateful. Yet she couldn't understand why exactly the idea of strolling would deem itself particularly endearing to him having only been here a night. Who had he known?

And to answer her questions right then and there, the door opened and closed with a click to reveal her little husband. "Goodmorning, my dear!" With a tray full of biscuits, bacon and eggs scrambled, he approached their dining table. "Up! I brought our breakfast to our rooms this morning, if that's alright. I thought it'd be best if we broke our fast together."

"Of course," Sansa mumbled, sliding off the mattress and grabbing at a robe draped over her chair. "Thank you."

"Did you dream well?"

"I did not dream." She paused, taking a seat across from him and grabbing at a biscuit to throw on her plate. As she picked it apart, she continued, "It is better than my usual dreams though, my lord. Unless it is you I dream of." Watching as his hands fumbled the fork, he tried his best to smile.

"You flatter me."

"You save me from monsters when I dream." The honesty in her tone nearly made him stiffen, losing his will to make words. How had that been? He recalls five years ago being the immediate cause of her nightmares, or at least so he thought. He had counted twice the amount of times he'd listened to his name purr off her tongue while she dreamed - melodic and beautiful, not seeming so tortured. He wondered if he held her in her dreams. Although, most nights, he would need to wake her in the middle of the night to stop her screaming.

She picked up some eggs and bacon now. The bacon was burnt black - she recalled Tyrion liking it that way, though to her it just tasted like a mouthful of ashes. Nevertheless, she chewed. Tyrion watched her. The way her face moved and hers eyes flit, but they never would land on him. She was as beautiful and elegant as a statue, hiding herself away behind the familiar armor which had become her.

Most days, Tyrion would handle the ravens and she would come to their chambers just before the sun would set to dine with him in privacy. They enjoyed that time together. And when the time would come for them to climb into bed together, it was normally side-by-side where they would breathe until they drifted, sometimes saying quiet goodnights to one another. Very rarely, she would ask him to hold her. Those were his most treasured nights with her. One night, she did not join him when they flit toward their bed.

"Are you alright, my dear?" He'd asked her. She stood by the bedside, once again fiddling with her straps as she did the first night. "Sansa, look at me." Her eyes moved over him in a sense of panic that he'd caught. "What is it?"

Swallowing something hard in her throat, she choked when she mumbled to him, "I am finding myself craving something very delicate to me." With a nod, he outstretched his arms for her to come to him. She did so very hesitantly, instead simply lying on her knees where his arms ran up and down her shoulders. He felt he understood what she was trying to say, but he nodded at her to continue. "The past few nights, you have not touched me at all."

"Sansa -"

"And there is something beginning to well inside me when I lay beside you." He watched as her porcelain mask painted itself red as a rose. "I want something from you."

"Anything." She glanced down at her lap, battling with herself for the correct wording.

"I'm not really sure just what it is yet." He did though. The way her face would flush and her long, slim fingers dabbled around the hem of her nightclothes, and most of all the way it looked as if she were fighting herself to look him in the eye. She was beautiful, and she wanted him.

Before he could find the words to tell her, he had to ponder the reality he was living; Sansa Stark, the Queen in the North, nervous and needing of his affections - of his touch. He remembered the day he had realized that he'd wanted her, and like a weight of bricks against his shoulders it hit him. He not only wanted her name, he had wanted _everything about her._

He brought his hand up to her chin, willing her to look him in the eye. "Is it me you want?"

"I know I am troubled. I know that, and I am not very good at these things. But I know that you are the kindest, bravest, gentlest man I've known my entire life. And I am yours, however you want me. But I have wanted you for a long time now." His heart thumped in his chest, and very hesitantly, he brushed his fingertips along the lower area of her stomach. A shiver rolled through her, causing him to grin.

"If it is that you feel you are not good at these things, or asking for what you want… allow me to lead us from here." She nodded, and rather than her allowing her initial reaction of flinching away from his touch, she melted into his warmth as he captured her in a passionate kiss.

"You have no idea how many nights I have longed for this." He murmured against her soft lips, moving them with his with a hunger. It was the first time he kissed her since they left kings landing, and now with the key in his hands, he allowed himself to travel to her neck and then her collarbone. All the while, his thumbs rubbed at the dip on either side of her hips. "How I have longed to have you as my own," he continued, bringing his mouth back up to her and parting her lips with his tongue. As he felt her stiffen underneath him at the new sensation, he decided to take it slower, sucking gently on her lower lip. "Beautiful, sweet Sansa…"

"Tyrion," she croaked. There was absolutely no protest from him. He inhaled her breath one last time before undressing the straps of her nightgown once and for all, tugging until it revealed her chest to the cool air. When he glanced up at her, her eyes were full of emotion, eyes full with tears as if she may sob at any moment. Without breaking eye contact with her, he let his thumb idly caress her right nipple. Suddenly overcome with emotion himself, he tried to muster a sweet smile at her.

To his surprise, her hand clamped onto his on her breast, burying it there. Still seeming uncertain, she whispered to him as if shocked herself, "It feels good."

"Yes, my love. It can," Lifting his hand from her breast to intertwine their fingers, he leaned down, taking one of her nipples between his lip, switching between licking and sucking. Strangled in her throat, he listened to her moan his name wildly. Feeling his cock restrict against his breeches, he realized his own primal urgency was becoming a problem. He needed her _now_. He needed to taste her. "Lie down for me, Sansa." She obliged, laying her head onto her pillow, scattering her fiery hair around her. With hardly any warning, his lips pressed against the cloth covering her womanhood, making her hips wiggle. "Let it happen, sweetling," he chuckled, nuzzling his face into the crease over top of her nightgown.

Beginning at her knee, he allowed his hand to roam up her thigh, all the while inhaling her scent until his eyes rolled back, applying a pressure with his chin that caused her to whine.

"Tyrion."

"Yes?"

"I'm aching there." _Oh_, his cock pulsed. He groaned, almost a possessive growl, against her covered mound. He wanted to rip the cloth away from her, bury himself inside of her from ear to ear. Instead, he took a steadier approach - sliding his hands up to the top of her gown and pulling it off in one motion, tossing it aside. She'd gasped, hands reflexively coming to rest between her legs and pulling her knees together, but he'd stopped her hands.

"Sansa, I love you more than anything in this world. Let me take care of you tonight." She bit her lip, digging her head into the pillow and lying her hands firmly against her abdomen. Carefully, he separated her legs, first planting kisses along her thighs. But the more he stayed there, the more the scent of her began intoxicating him and before he knew it his mouth began making love with her lower lips, searching his tongue around her insides feverishly. "You taste more beautiful than I'd imagined," he moaned.

Sansa squealed as he lifted her legs by the back of her thighs into the air, high enough that her toes were grazing her shoulders while her knees bent. His tongue grazed the scarring of her backside, and he could hear her exhale a shuttered breath. Between kisses and licks, his tongue followed the natural curve of her rear until he had driven himself into her depths. "Th-that's not…"

"Modest of me?" He'd chuckled, continuing his work between her lower cheeks. It too, was much too sweet. He'd devoured her, driving his tongue inside every mystery he could find until her entire body was shaking and her whines became high-pitched moans. "I love you, Lady Stark." He murmured against her.

"Tyrion…" _Ah. That was it. For in the dark, I am not the knight of flowers - no. I am Tyrion Lannister. _Smiling against her, he sucked gently where he'd wanted, trailing gentle fingers between her crease and back up until he'd found her point of pleasure. Her hips bucked at him, and with her securing her own legs on top of his shoulders, he allowed one hand to spread her bottom and another to play with the her button. "Tyrion, Tyrion… Gods, what are you doing to me?" He wanted to tell her he was trying to fix her. He wanted to tell her he was trying to satiate his own needs to devour her entirely. He wanted to tell her he loved her so very much, and each and every part of her was entirely perfect to him. "Thats not right, it's not…" Yet, she moaned as he drove his tongue inside her.

He wanted to soothe her - understanding, of course, this was very new to her and his seemingly immodest and perhaps fetish-like desires were not exactly _common_. He loved her for moaning anyways though as he had dreamed of this for too long for her to stop him now.

At some point, her hips began bucking against him as she cried out is name over and over and over again. The noise spilled chills all over his body and making his heart ache almost painfully in love. He did not enter her that night, and instead, held her into his chest as she cried into his chest.

"I didn't know," she pled.

"What, my darling?"

"I didn't know it could feel like that." She sniffled, wiping her eyes with his shirt. He grinned victoriously against the top of her head, pulling her into him closer. "Also, you _are_ a pervert. That - that was…"

"I am the imp," he said, repeating the same words he'd used when they walked the gardens as newly engaged lord and lady. "And you were beautiful," pulling away from her to kiss her forehead, he cradled her against him. "And I do appreciate you allowing me the pleasure."

"Allowing _you? _It was _blissful_."

He'd made a habit out of it each night. Each night he made love to her with his mouth until all she could do was plead and beg and cry his name in ecstasy. Finishing her was torture most nights though, because the way his cock would strain against his breeches until it hurt was enough to take its toll, though he did not want to push her.

One night, she allowed him, if not even having realized the difference at first, insert a finger inside of her. "Tyrion?"

"Are you alright, sweetling?" Very slowly while she made her judgement, he nestled it in and out, curving his finger to find her sweet spot. At last, the whine escaped her lips, and he continued onward. The second finger she allowed, and even pushed herself against.

"Tyrion."

"Yes?"

"I want _you_ now. _Please_."

_Ah. _He'd thought, _It is as if I've died and gone to heaven._

That very night, as he entered her, soaking the both of them in her juices, he pressed a kiss to her core. "I love you, Sansa Stark. I love you forever."

"I love you too, Tyrion Lannister - the lion and love of my life."


End file.
